Flexible Seating? What's that? Your child may have come home from school in the last few days talking about flexible seating or saying that they sat in a "beach chair" or "camp chair" or using words like "wobble stools", "tall table" and other new terms. These are all part of the flexible seating environment in room 202. What is flexible seating? According to Edutopia, (who sums it up way better than I could) Flexible Seating provides students with learning environment that they need. "Flexible classrooms gives students a choice in what kind of learning space works best for them, and helps them to work collaboratively, communicate, and engage in critical thinking". The flexibility also allows for innovative partner and group work using technology. It is adaptive and can change with the students' needs or the students can try a different type of seating that might work better for them. For example, if many students in a classroom find wobble stools helpful, but there are only two stools, the teacher could source through donations or other means, more stools to meet her students' needs. Also, if the wobble stools are not helpful to a particular student, she can move to say, a seat or the floor, or a traditional chair that works better for her.
Here are some examples of types of seating your child saw in the flexible seating classroom this week.
Camp Chairs
Traditional Desks
Kidney Shaped Table with White Stools
(Never fear, I know that table looks low - we are getting a replacement when George gets a few minutes to put it together and bring it in)
Stability Ball Chairs (donated by two families from my class last year - Thanks!)
We also have some guidelines and these work really well. We are spending the first week trying out different types of seats so that students can learn how each feels. We are also learning what the right way to use each seat is. As part of this flexible classroom, students also don't have individual desks so we have switched over to completely classroom supplies as I mentioned in my supply list (from the Responsive Classroom model). So returning supplies when done with them is very important. Also we discussed that choosing their own seat is a privilege and I will give a reminder first but if a seat isn't working for someone I will move them to a free spot that is better. The reasons for seat moving might include, but not be limited to: students not being safe on the seat, not using it right, not concentrating on their work, or talking too much to a peer seated nearby. Students will understand the seating choices and how best to use them fairly quickly and I think it will be a wonderful experience.
If you want to learn more about Flexible Seating, the research and experience behind it, try these two posts on Edutopia:
Flexible Classrooms (more of a news-type article with explanations)
Flexible Seating and Student-Centered Classroom Redesign (directed more towards teachers who want to learn more, but has great information on what it is, why teachers are trying it, and a little about community supplies and Responsive Classroom)